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Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

arstechnica.com

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Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#61

Post by simsla »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #47
chilmers wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the linked NIH page on drug-induced liver toxicity: “Importantly, means of increasing the bioavailability of curcumin were developed using piperine (black pepper) or lipid nanoparticle delivery methods to increase absorption. These high bioavailability forms of purified curcumin were subsequently linked to several cases of liver injury and mentioned as a possible cause of outbreaks of acute hepatitis with jaundi…

Probably over a million people have taken curcumin+piperine supplements that they bought via Amazon. See, e.g.: https://i.ibb.co/Qvbdjqf7/amazon-curcumin.png My impression as an author with books on Amazon is that you get one review or rating for every 20-30 purchases, and there are two products with "200k people have purchased multiple times." And that's to say nothing of people who have bought such products via oth…

Damage is usually done in aggregate. Leaded gasoline didn't have people dropping like flies, but still caused significant damage.

Although it seems this needs more research, I'd be wary dismissing it out of hand just because people haven't been having an acute reaction.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#62

Post by magicalhippo »

esperent wrote: post #54
magicalhippo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just searched for tumeric black pepper extract and this[1] was the first product hits I got. It's called "Turmeric Curcumin with Black Pepper, 2250mg", and the bottle predominantly says "Turmeric" in a large font with the rest in a very small font. The description states: Each serving of Qunol Turmeric capsules' formulation contains 2250mg of curcumin with 95% curcuminoids. Other turmeric formulations may only cont…

There's probably hundreds of brands of turmeric and black pepper though, it's a common supplement combination.

The point was that there are capsules out there marketed as turmeic supplement which are almost pure curcumin, so it's not unlikely the article referred to them as turmeic capsules while they were technically curcumin capsules.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#63

Post by orwin »

speeder wrote: post #6

So I live in the EU where such supplements are supposedly safe. Article said that supplements that mix pepper and turmeric are dangerous. And the dose that was dangerous to the woman was 2000mg. I looked on my table toward the bottle of turmeric my parents gifted me recently, saying they heard it was good and bought on a famous "health" store. Bottle is: turmeric + pepper "designed for max absorption" and dose is 100…

Two points:

one, it's extremely likely that the article is incomplete and lack critical info like a presence of lead, or genetic predisposition.

Two: 10g is crazy. That's how you get kidney stones. Put so curcuma and black pepper in your meals. In EU, supplements (and recently, tea) are tested for heavy metal and plastic, and to see if the ingredient list is correct, but their effectiveness is not.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#64

Post by esperent »

magicalhippo wrote: post #62
esperent wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably hundreds of brands of turmeric and black pepper though, it's a common supplement combination.

The point was that there are capsules out there marketed as turmeic supplement which are almost pure curcumin, so it's not unlikely the article referred to them as turmeic capsules while they were technically curcumin capsules.

In that case, I'm very disappointed in the journalist who wrote this piece, and it's significantly lowered my opinion of Ars Technica that they allowed it to be published in this state.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#65

Post by esperent »

perihelions wrote: post #57
esperent wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I carefully read the article before commenting to check in case it was actually curcumin. They clearly call it turmeric supplements, not curcumin, throughout the article. The main source given is this NBC article, which also clearly calls it turmeric supplements, not curcumin: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/liver-damage-turm... So why do you think it's actually curcumin?

If you follow the linked references in the Ars Technica , those reference curcumin unambiguously. https://apps.who.int/food-additives-contaminants-jecfa-datab... ( "...ADI of 0–3 mg/kg of body weight for curcumin..." ) That's concordant with the "up to 3 mg per kilogram of weight" in Ars , which is phrased ambiguously, as if to refer to turmeric. The Ars editors are in the wrong.

Ok, so the WHO recommendation is for curcumin. That makes sense.However, the supplement this woman was taking is quite unambiguously referred to as turmeric in both articles.

At this point I'd say we should just write it off as terrible reporting and make a mental note that the quality of Ars Technica is taking a significant drop, if they're allowing these kind of errors in their articles.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#66

Post by IAmBroom »

speeder wrote: post #6

So I live in the EU where such supplements are supposedly safe. Article said that supplements that mix pepper and turmeric are dangerous. And the dose that was dangerous to the woman was 2000mg. I looked on my table toward the bottle of turmeric my parents gifted me recently, saying they heard it was good and bought on a famous "health" store. Bottle is: turmeric + pepper "designed for max absorption" and dose is 100…

10000 mg is 1/3 ounce, or nearly a half teaspoon of flour. That's huge.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#67

Post by IAmBroom »

perihelions wrote: post #19

If a synthetic food additive were that hazardous at that small a multiple of the amounts used in food, it'd have been banned. This (curcumin) is an exemplar of that pervasive magical thinking in modern society, the naturalistic fallacy: the prior that there's some inherent qualitative difference between the class of things occurring naturally and the technological/synthetic. It's perfectly legal to dye food yellow wi…

Avoid... curry?

That doesn't make sense in any context.

Are you a bot?

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#68

Post by perihelions »

IAmBroom wrote: post #67
perihelions wrote: post #19

If a synthetic food additive were that hazardous at that small a multiple of the amounts used in food, it'd have been banned. This (curcumin) is an exemplar of that pervasive magical thinking in modern society, the naturalistic fallacy: the prior that there's some inherent qualitative difference between the class of things occurring naturally and the technological/synthetic. It's perfectly legal to dye food yellow wi…

Avoid... curry? That doesn't make sense in any context. Are you a bot?

> "That doesn't make sense in any context."

It's exceptionally sensible in the context where hundreds of millions of children worldwide are clinically lead-poisoned, and contaminated turmeric is one of the leading causes of that.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/09/23/nx-s1...

> "Are you a bot?"

Kindly read the forum rules.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#69

Post by tim333 »

IAmBroom wrote: post #66
speeder wrote: post #6

So I live in the EU where such supplements are supposedly safe. Article said that supplements that mix pepper and turmeric are dangerous. And the dose that was dangerous to the woman was 2000mg. I looked on my table toward the bottle of turmeric my parents gifted me recently, saying they heard it was good and bought on a famous "health" store. Bottle is: turmeric + pepper "designed for max absorption" and dose is 100…

10000 mg is 1/3 ounce, or nearly a half teaspoon of flour. That's huge.

Tesco's Easy chicken korma recipe has 1 tsp ground turmeric https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chicken-korma-curry.html

I think I'd rather mine in Chicken Korma than some pill.

Re: Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage

#70

Post by cheschire »

speeder wrote: post #60
cheschire wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it’s not microgram (μg)?

Link to a photo of the box. https://peixeverde.pt/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/curcumega-8... Pretty sure that is a mg, not an μg

Looking online at that, the ingredients are confusing.

Composition: Per capsule:

Turmeric (equivalence) - 10 000 mg; Turmeric (containing at least 95% curcumin) - 350 mg; Turmeric (exact 5:1) - 150 mg; Black Pepper - 5 mg; Vitamin C - 80 mg (100% VRN ); Zinc - 10 mg (100% VRN )

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